


Been a long hard road (Got a ways to go)

by orphan_account



Series: Haven [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Peter is a pill, This is nothing new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stared up at the night sky which looked back with compassion. </p><p>All he could see was pity.</p><p>Companion piece to <i>I'm going to make this place your home</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Been a long hard road (Got a ways to go)

**Author's Note:**

> What was Derek doing while Stiles was rebuilding his world?
> 
> I don't plan on writing Peter or Scott's version of that summer, but I'll probably write Isaac's at some point.
> 
> So, the last one was inspired by Phillip Phillips' _Home_ , and this one is named after a line in Dierks Bentley's song of the same name. There's so many lovely songs with that title, with different tones. Who knows which one I'll use for Isaac?

Stars watched over the room and its single occupant. They had looked after him in the night off and on for most of the year. Their vigilance would be more appreciated if it could have kept his family safe seven years ago, back before the integrity of the ceiling and the walls and the flooring had been seared away in one malicious act.

No. That was wrong. It hadn’t been a single act. It had been a series of acts, all tied together by dangerous flirtation, beautiful blonde hair and wicked green eyes, and stolen moments kept secret from the rest of his pack, culminating in the final conflagration.

He stared up at the night sky which looked back with compassion.

All he could see was pity.

Perhaps it was foolish to spend his last night in Beacon Hills for the next three months tormenting himself with the remnants of his past, but Derek had spent his time back in this claustrophobic town collecting a series of foolish decisions for his life’s hat, so why not add one more?

He stretched out his senses, feeling through his strongest pack bond. It wasn’t necessary, since he could hear Isaac’s heartbeat perfectly, the measure of it slow and even with sleep. It was comforting, though, having that impression of _pack/safe/trust/anywhere-you-go-I-follow_ envelope him, even if he knew it would be difficult to handle letting go. Still, he could not afford to grow dependent upon his beta’s emotions, especially since he would be leaving Isaac behind to the questionably competent yet wholly committed care of one Scott McCall for the duration of his departure.

The sole reason Derek had accepted that plan was because Melissa McCall had assured him she would be keeping an eye on both of the boys in his absence. He needed to be able to leave Isaac with someone who he could at least marginally trust, and Melissa McCall, who reminded him just a little of his own mother in the way she fought for the safety and happiness of her son, seemed like the right choice.

That did little to change how much he loathed having to separate from his one faithful beta, though. He knew it was necessary. Isaac was young to the ways of werewolves, and underage. He needed stability, which Derek would be woefully unable to give him while he traveled from one old ally to the next, seeking aid or advice for the coming conflict with the alpha pack. Derek would be worn thin from carrying out negotiations, dealing with Peter, and struggling to hold onto his strength so far away from the place that had been his family’s home for generations.

Heaving a sigh, he focused once more on the starry expanse.

When he slipped into slumber, he dreamed that his childhood room was engulfed in flames, vindictive laughter making the tongues of fire leap higher.

…

As they stood together on the front porch of the McCall residence, it was hard to bite his tongue against all of the instructions he wanted to leave. He wanted to tell Isaac to stay safe, to ignore any of Scott’s idiot plans, to not discuss the alpha pack until they had some halfway decent news to combat it with, to call him every day, to eat well, to _tell someone_ if he started having nightmares again. He wanted to say so many things, but as almost always seemed to be the case with Derek, he had waited too long. He had missed his window.

Instead, he said simply, “You’ll be alright here. The McCalls are good people. Ask Scott for help if you have any trouble on the full moon.” He clenched his hands against the impulse to run one of them through Isaac’s hair in the way he used to for his younger siblings and cousins, and then decided to hell with it: he might as well. After revelling briefly at the pleased look on his young beta’s face, Derek told him, “I’ll see you in three months,” just as the door opened, revealing a sleep-rumpled Scott McCall, who had obviously been trying to take advantage of the first weekday of summer break to sleep in. “Scott,” Derek nodded.

Scott mumbled something that was ultimately unintelligible even to Derek’s hearing, and then beckoned Isaac inside, shooting Peter, who had been hovering over Derek’s shoulder the entire time, a muzzled yet suspicious look. The door shut, the lock clicked, and Derek’s journey began with a quip from his uncle about the younger McCall’s lack of hospitality.

Wishing immediately that the whole thing was already over wasn’t an omen for how the rest of the journey would unfold. It simply was.

…

Six alphas made less than subtle intimations of a possible union between Derek and one of their children. After departing each pack’s territory, Peter would shoot him teasing looks and make gentle jibes, and it was almost like having his uncle - the one from before: the one who taught him what sarcasm was, and bought him his first leather jacket even while he clucked over Derek’s sense of style - back, joking about Derek’s good looks and what a lady killer he would be one day. Although, as it had turned out, Peter was the one who eventually went about killing ladies, including the only one whose life Derek would not have felt guilty about ending.

Those kinds of thoughts inevitably crept in and decimated whatever progress Derek managed to make toward healing the rift between them, and it made the hours after incredibly stilted and awkward on both their parts.

Derek had no idea what he was supposed to do to fix it. He wasn’t even completely convinced he should try.

Even as they slept side by side in their room at a modest bed and breakfast that was six hours between the Howletts and the Lupins, Derek remembered Deaton’s warning. There was a reason he hadn’t taken the risk of leaving Peter behind.

Eventually, Peter grew tired of the recurring pattern. “Alright. It was funny before, but now it’s becoming pathetic. You’re obviously not going to find anyone as dark and brooding as you are, nephew, so let me make this as painless as possible for us both. You know I used to help your father with negotiations. I can tell you which packs will try to form an alliance by foisting their children off on a young and inexperienced alpha, and which ones won’t.”

Worn out from sidestepping propositions from packs which wanted to arrange a velvet takeover of their territory and unable to even summon enough energy to level his uncle with a glare, Derek sighed instead of growling at the confirmation that even with how crucial their task was, Peter had been letting him suffer for his own amusement. “Be my guest.”

...

Things went smoother after Peter actually started taking the negotiations seriously. The Dennisons were by far the pack Derek liked the most, with Cecily Dennison ruling her family in the same sort of benevolent dictatorship he’d grown up knowing. The greying matriarch treated him with the firmness she used toward her own cubs, yet still managed to respect his position as alpha in his own right. They stayed with her pack for three weeks, reasoning that their prospects for an alliance with most of the other packs were already gone, since Derek refused to cater to their desire for matrimony.

On the day they finally left to head out for the Hood pack, Cecily pulled Derek in close and let him bury his nose in her neck the way he’d wanted to for most of their stay, yet hadn’t been able to bring himself to reach out. “Life hasn’t been kind to you, and you’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but if your parents could see you now, I know they would be proud of you.” Derek bit his tongue against the retort that wanted to spill out of his mouth and eat away her comfort like so much acid. As if she knew - and she probably did, because this was Cecily, and much like his father, Cecily had this way of knowing every little thing he held inside - she squeezed him tighter with the arm around his back, and the hand at the nape of his neck. “You’re doing a good thing, getting help for your pack, Derek. You’re trying to take care of the family you’ve made for yourself, and no matter what happens, no one can take that away from you.”

That night, as he listened to the untroubled beating of his sleeping uncle’s heart, Derek tried to reach out to the rest of his pack. Anemic and wary, Erica and Boyd brushed against his consciousness before shying away, and Derek had to fight against the guilt and the anger and move on. They had answered his call, wherever they were, and for now that was all he could hope for. Jackson responded to him with a half-hearted nudge, and then withdrew. Isaac, when he felt Derek pulling at him, rushed toward him eagerly, filling up the dark and neglected parts of them both with just how much he wanted to love and be loved. Before, Isaac had always been the most faithful and affectionate of his betas, but this was more than that. His time with the McCalls must have gone a long way to helping his confidence, because where he had been shy about his devotion before, he bathed Derek in it now. It was everything the bonds with Erica and Boyd and Jackson were not, and Derek for once allowed himself to bask in it, sending his own thanks and hopes and strength back.

He felt stronger and more peaceful than he had since the last night Laura had been in New York. He and Laura had tangled together on their overstuffed brown couch and watched _Days of Our Lives_ , because it was Laura’s guilty pleasure, and who was he to deny his sister, his alpha, his best friend? And Laura had been as warm and comforting as ever, but her mind had been elsewhere, and then she was gone.

As he drifted off to sleep, the bond with Isaac still bright and full and beautiful, he promised that from now on, he would to be the older sibling to his beta that Laura had always been to him.

…

The Hoods were good people, but Derek was starting to feel anxious to get back to Beacon Hills. They were due back in two weeks, anyway. It was as he lay in the prairie grass, staring up at the stars without accusations for the first time in months, that he felt two new bonds burst into existence. The rush of power was dizzying enough that he was distantly grateful it began when he was already supine, but it was the force of the personalities and the mix of emotions that came with it that left him feeling breathless. Determination/faith/leaping-before-looking/not-worried/you’ll-catch-me/exhilaration and  
atonement/wonder/you- _will_ -make-a-space-for-me became everything he knew for what felt like hours, but was likely only a few minutes, and he tried to respond, tried to let Stiles and Lydia know that he was there, only to remember that the human members of his family had never been able to feel the bonds in the same way. He would just have to welcome them to the pack in person.

Peter walked out to his spot in the grass after the sun started peeking over the horizon and looked down at him with knowing eyes, tossing his duffle bag at Derek’s feet.

…

Isaac opened the front door of the McCall residence before Derek had made it halfway up the sidewalk, and Derek held open his arms. As he rubbed his cheek against his young beta’s, his eyes met Scott McCall’s. Looking tanner and calmer than he had last seen him, Scott nodded in acknowledgement from where he leaned up against the door frame when Derek took a deep breath and told him, “Thank you.” He felt Isaac pull back and glanced slightly up to see him beaming.

“I’m glad you’re happy.” From anyone else, the words might sound sardonic, but Isaac spoke them quietly, his eyes wide and sincere, and Derek reached up to ruffle his hair the way he had three months before. He wondered if Isaac fully understood _why_ Derek was happy, at the same time he marveled at the knowledge that he was, and that it had taken his beta to be able to identify the emotion.

He’d tell Isaac about Lydia and Stiles later. For now, he simply allowed his lips to fall into a small smile and gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the still-open door. “Grab your bag.”

…

The three of them stood together in front of the Hale house, frozen.

The only thing that belied the impression that everything was perfect, that no fire had ever touched this beloved place, was the intermingled scent of the three humans all throughout the clearing, and he knew, if he dared to set foot through the front door, would be all throughout the house, as well. He waited for his hackles to raise, for the red to bloom before his eyes, knowing an Argent had been here. The scents of his pack, of Lydia and Stiles, kept the rage at bay, leaving room only for awe.

Later on, he would be able to ask Isaac, “Did you know?” He would be able to walk through the silent halls and decide that he liked the new colors, that it was alright for the inside of the house to look a little different. After all, hadn’t he changed? Hadn’t they all?

But that would come after dragging his eyes away from the house; after glancing at Peter, who looked more human, more real, more himself than he had in almost seven years; after feeling Isaac reach out and gently squeeze his hand before letting go; after dropping his duffle bag from shock-numbed fingers; after turning and flying toward the one he knew had to be responsible for shaking and rearranging the foundations of his world the way he had time and again for the past year.

If he’d been any less stunned, he might have laughed at what an unassuming figure Stiles made, his legs ticking back and forth in the air as he lay on his stomach, looking up at him from the comic which had held his attention until Derek jumped through his wide-open window. Instead, he found himself staring, struggling to find the words to express what Stiles couldn’t feel, because he was human, and humans needed words - especially this one - but all that came out was a woefully inadequate, “Why?”

Stiles had more than enough words for both of them, and then he had a question of his own. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Derek studied the long lines of his companion’s neck as Stiles gazed at his bookshelves, perhaps to give them both a chance to collect themselves. He thought of hours spent listening to other alphas and meeting other young werewolves. He thought of days on the road with only Peter around to break the monotony. He nearly spilled everything about how his time with Cecily was equal parts blessing and curse, so close and still so far from having his father back. He thought about that perfect moment in the field outside the Hood house, when everything had fallen into place.

Had he found what he was looking for? He’d thought he was looking for allies to help their pack against the alphas, but perhaps he’d thought wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time. Finally he said lowly, “Not while I was gone.”

When Stiles asked, “But you have now?” Derek gave into the need he had felt the moment he felt Stiles become a part of his pack, stepping forward until his feet were framed by another set, and he could bring their owner to stand up flush against him, encircling shoulders that were broader and stronger than they appeared. He may not always have the right words, but he could still let his lips answer in their own way, pressing the truth into a softer, fuller pair.

He hadn’t realized until now that what he’d been searching for all along was something to lead him home.


End file.
